Beyond the Abyss
by Igenlode Wordsmith
Summary: "Don't throw your life away for my sake": Raoul will take any cost upon himself to save Christine from the Opera Ghost, even if all he can do is buy her a little time... R/C. Rated T for horror/angst.


"Don't throw your life away for my sake": Raoul will take any cost upon himself to save Christine from the Opera Ghost, even if all he can do is buy her a little time... Rated T for horror/angst.

* * *

**Beyond the Abyss**

"— _do you end your days with me,_  
_Or do you send him to his grave?"_

"_Why make her lie to you to save me?"_

Bitterness filled Raoul's throat, drowning the coppery taste of blood, and he jerked uselessly at his bonds, ignoring the pain. The scent of dank water clung to him, beading at temples and throat, and trickling noisome from the ends of his hair. He was soaked through and shivering from the chill of it now, helpless to stop despite the humiliation, but the reek swamped him with his own failure.

Christine; Christine, bruised and afraid and still fighting, in all the courage of her hopeless defiance, as he'd raced through hell and high water to reach her in time. She'd known nothing of rescue; had faced her abductor with challenge for challenge, little head held proudly aloft on the curve of her throat like a swaying reed — until he'd come. Until he, Raoul de Chagny, who would have given his heart's blood to free her from that dark ravishment, had come half-maddened with despair to the brink of the abyss that called her — and had let his fear for her ensnare him, to her bitter cost.

"For pity's sake, Christine, say no!"

That proud reed was broken now, her head bent and pleading in an abasement that he had brought upon her, and the knowledge of it was the true garotte that choked him. He fought anew against that crushing grip, heedless of the blackness that encroached upon him. Christine — he'd come to throw his life between her and danger, and all he'd achieved was to make of that life an intolerable hostage to fate.

"Not for my sake —"

Eternity with her body and soul in the thrall of this madman; he could not bear it. He'd glimpsed the face behind the mask briefly in the shock of that chaos on stage. Now he saw it plain, twisted in an ugly triumph that was more a distortion than the dead, deformed flesh. In the flickering light it was nightmare incarnate; but it was no longer that monstrous sight that sickened him. It was the thought of the creature who could bargain with a woman so — who believed that love could be bought with murder like a bloodstained purse.

Raoul had fought so hard to free her. And now, hanging bound and prisoner in the heart of his enemy's domain, he found only one choice left before him that might save her still. _Christine, forgive me..._

"No!" His voice, roughened by the rope, cut across her pleading, and the cavernous gaze of the Opera Ghost lifted for a moment beyond to burn into his own. "_Monsieur le fantôme_, the folly was mine, the bargain is not hers to take — why make her pay for the sins that were mine? Your own words, monsieur, and I hold you to them. Do you think I hold my life so dear that sweet Christine could buy it at the cost of her own?"

He threw his weight against the noose, falling; heard Christine's cry and his enemy's rage, dimly, as the blood beat in his ears and the pressure beneath his jaw sent his head swimming into choking oblivion.

~ o ~ o ~

Then hard hands on him, merciless in their release. Raoul coughed and choked again, great gasps searing his ravaged throat as he jerked helplessly in his enemy's grip; but those hands held him pinioned upright. The breath of the Ghost was stale on his cheek, hissing between teeth bared in a constant lipless sneer, and the reek of old water swam around them both.

"Do you think a de Chagny fears to die?" Raoul said hoarsely into that face of incarnate fury, summoning contempt of his own. "Do you think I would not give the heart from my breast to spare her? Give me a sword, monsieur, and I would cast myself upon it this moment sooner than see her sell herself to you..."

The rope bit still around his neck, but it was in memory only; the noose was a slack weight upon his breast. It seemed the Ghost had been forced to cut him down; despite the pain in his bound wrists, the knowledge was a small fierce triumph.

But he cherished no illusions of ultimate victory; only the faintest of flickering hopes that he might still somehow buy freedom for her, if there was any honour in the creature at all.

"Raoul..." It was barely a whisper, but Christine's eyes were huge and dark, devouring her face. He tried to shake his head, to warn her no; _don't let him see, don't give him that to use..._ There were tracks of tears on her cheeks now where there had been none before, and his heart tore within him. But the steadfast resolve in her was a beacon in that dark place, even when another tear spilled over, unheeded, as she turned. The words shaped by her silent lips clung like a memory of farewell on his own: I love you.

The grip that held him slackened for an instant in answer, as the Ghost turned sharply, and Raoul almost fell. His limbs seemed to have turned to water beneath him and he was no longer even certain he could stand.

But those haunted, obsessive eyes were burning now on Christine, even as Raoul was thrust back once more against the bars. "You try my patience — make your choice!"

Christine's mouth was set as she met her captor's gaze, but her lips parted for a moment as she drew breath.

"_I_ choose," Raoul said fiercely in response, demanding a hearing, desperate for words that would bite. "You would have her claim to love you or else send me to my grave — you, who were her friend, her idol! False friend, fallen idol: did you not hear how she sees you now? Who loves her more truly, _Monsieur le fantôme_ — he who would kill to possess her, or he who would die to set her free?

"One cannot win love by such a bargain; only lies, only a lifetime of suspicion, jealousy and despair. Let her go before the dream turns to ashes — let her go, to live, to love neither of us. Take your victory in more befitting coin : tear out my heart as you tear out your own.

"I choose death, monsieur — willingly, gladly. Do with me as you will: I am only a man, I cannot undertake to bear it all in silence, you may yet have the pleasure to break me at the last. That would be a joy to you, would it not?"

Despite everything his young voice wavered, and a dark hunger of contempt flickered in the hollow eyes so close to his own.

"If you have any honour left," Raoul said, hearing the words crack shamefully despite himself, "you will make it swift. But in any case you shall see how a gentleman can die... I beg only that Christine should not hear it. Send her away, far from here — if you have any mercy for her, let her go..."

_Let it be enough: let me buy you this much, Christine, as many minutes as I can endure. Dear God, let my folly at least buy you the time to flee — to sate his dark lusts in vengeance upon myself before he can seek again to slake them at your shrine..._

He was afraid, most horribly afraid, and when the Ghost cast him at last aside his legs would not bear him.

~ o ~ o ~

Raoul de Chagny fought his way to his feet. His bound hands were swollen, the ropes cutting tightly into his flesh, but it would not matter much longer. The shivering was the cold, he told himself, only the cold; it racked him almost constantly now.

"If I have any honour left..." The Ghost laughed without warning, a sound that pealed from madness into pain. "Do you not know, _Monsieur le Vicomte_, that honour is for gentlemen? What honour in this life have I ever known?"

The nails of one hand raked upwards abruptly, shockingly, into dead flesh, clawing at its own monstrosity, and Raoul knew a sudden appalling moment of pity.

"There will be others, when I am gone," he flung back in return. "Such radiance cannot be hidden from the world forever, and she is young... There will be others, greedy in truth for the glory of her voice, coveting only her figure or her face, suitors deaf and blind to the sweet soul that called to me down the years..."

He drew breath, granting the creature that much justice at last. "...and that called to you."

Raoul set bound hands on the Ghost's shoulder, leaning forwards swiftly as the other man recoiled, and laid his own face against that ruined cheek — against the other — against mangled flesh, once, twice, thrice, with the grave unshrinking courtesy with which he would have saluted his own brother.

The Ghost broke from him almost in horror, backing away six paces or more, and for long seconds they found themselves staring at each other, breath coming short: the young Vicomte and the haunted shadow. "This much honour, at least," Raoul said into the silence... and saw the movement that was Christine.

She came forward lightly in her lily grace, and neither the tawdry stage-paint on her eyes nor the costume crushed in grime could dim for one instant the pure bright flame of her in that darkness. Raoul glimpsed her transfigured, and knew through the pain that twisted in his breast that he saw her through his rival's eyes.

One slender hand rose to touch the Ghost's arm, and Raoul began a movement born of panic to stop her: _go now! flee from here — stay away!_ But the words died shame-faced on his lips, unspoken in the face of the age-old courage that dwelt in her eyes.

Christine Daaé laid both hands on the breast of the Opera Ghost, and reached up to set her lips gently upon his, without fear or revulsion. An aching moment later, Raoul, watching, saw the Ghost stoop down on a long breath to return the embrace, the wounded mouth clumsy and unaccustomed. Christine made a soft sound as a tear fell bright on her cheek. It was not hers.

In an agony of horror and wonder Raoul watched them cling, as if in a sacrament not to be disturbed: watched Christine released at last, a queer grave wisdom in her face.

"And this much honour also," she said softly, making of it a benison. There came a broken sound in return that might have been a breath.

Then more swiftly than Raoul could account for, there was a flashing blade and blooming pain at his wrists, and the ravaged face bent over his own almost before there was time for fear.

"Take her and go." The voice was unrecognizable, an echo from an abyss of suffering. "Leave me alone — forget all you've seen —"

Christine was there somehow beneath Raoul's arm; cool fingers seeking at his wrists, pulling at the bloodied ends of cord still embedded in his flesh. It was only then he understood that he had been cut free.

A small hand in his own... twining...

"Go now!" The Ghost's head had come up sharply, listening, and Christine's hand froze as the sound became clear.

Somewhere — overhead — voices: howls, baying with an animal urgency. But there were words in it. "Murderer — revenge — track him down —" An ugly uncontrolled edge of hysteria.

"Fear," Christine whispered on a breath, "it is their fear. Fear kept them away all these years; but now it drives them on. The Opera Ghost has been a faceless fear too long. Now they will hunt him to ground..."

She was trembling. Raoul drew her against him; buried his face in her hair, heedless of wounds and weakness, a great incredulous flame leaping within him at the slender weight of her enclosed within his arms until he thought he would break in two from the joy of it.

A crash, from somewhere above. The sound of the mob rose in a shriek of triumph — burst closer in mindless lust, howling bloody vengeance.

Hands bit into his shoulder, thrusting him away so that Christine stumbled and almost fell.

"Don't let them find you!" It was a snarl of command. The Ghost's breath was hot on his cheek, but the urgent eyes were only on Christine. "Go now, don't wait — just take her and _go_ —"

As if waking from a dream Raoul saw the bars part before him; took a few steps, aware suddenly that he could hardly walk. Then Christine's arms were around him, guiding, and her slim dancer's strength was a prop at his side, urging warmth through his veins, pressing numbed limbs back to life. Together, they had made it almost to the gate when pounding footsteps overhead were followed by a scream, cut off. Then a tidal wave of blind fury.

He felt Christine shudder at the knowledge of death. Felt her also glance back, at that fury's hunted prey.

The Opera Ghost had not moved since they had left him. "Go! Go now before it is too late — do you think it is _you_ they seek?—"

Something flashed within the cavernous eyes and the Ghost closed the distance between them in a few lightning strides, thrusting the fugitives through the gate with hands that gripped like iron. At an unseen signal the gate crashed shut at their heels, barring them out.

"They will tear you apart if they find you here," Raoul said quietly, feeling the tremor running through the girl beside him.

"Why, then you shall see how a gentleman can die." The tone mocked; but the eyes burned. "I ask only that Christine should not — should not —" The voice broke at last; rose to an agony that lashed them.

"In God's name — if you have any mercy — go now and leave me!"

* * *

Raoul de Chagny sat bolt upright in the darkness, throwing off the covers; with that cry still echoing in his hearing, it was a moment before he knew that he was awake. The fine linen of his shirt clung around him, but it was only a night-sweat, nothing more. The pounding in his ears was his own heart and not the vengeance of the Opéra...

From the mantel above the fireplace, there was the slow tick of a clock. He reached out across the bed and struck a light: four o'clock, less the quarter-hour. The candle-light burnished his wife's hair; caught in her eyes as she stirred.

"Raoul..." She reached for him: found him gone, and woke fully. "Raoul? Is it the dream?"

"The same." His voice was less steady than he had thought, and Christine reached up wordlessly to pull him down against her. For a moment he resisted; then, with a groan, turned his face into the comfort of her shoulder, letting the memories ebb.

On other nights it had been he who held her till dawn, stroking her hair until the shivering stopped, hushing shuddering fears. But the dream, so far as she could tell it, was the same. And that cry — that memory, at least, haunted even his waking hours...

"They say there is a ghost again at the Opéra." Christine murmured it as if to a child, offering consolation. "Meg Giry has seen things — things that no one can explain..."

"And has she seen dead bodies? Has the new chandelier yet to fall?" With the night-terrors still upon him, he spared her less than he had meant. "No? Then I think, dear wife, we may safely say it is not the same Ghost..."

He felt her flinch from him and wished, too late, the words unsaid.

"It was said they found nothing beyond the lake after all," he offered instead, cold comfort. "It was said they were drunk, that there was no vengeance that night. Little Meg says there was only an empty mask..."

"They are ashamed — and afraid. Meg above all. She told me once — and when I went back —"

But of that she had never spoken: of those moments in their flight when, exhausted, he had sunk down to catch his breath and, when at last his sight had cleared, had found her gone. It could have been only minutes that she had been away, for she had slipped back to his side an instant later; but there had been fresh tears on her cheeks, and he had never sought to know what had passed in those last moments with the Opera Ghost.

She loved him as he loved her: simply and completely, with the whole of their fresh young hearts. It was all he'd ever asked of her, and all he needed to know. Beyond that — beyond that, they had one another to hold through the night, until daylight should come. And to remember... separately and apart... that as well as murder, there had been agony beyond the abyss.


End file.
